


A Man of Good Conscience

by Helicon



Category: Bloodborne (Video Game)
Genre: Child Death, Gen, Non-Graphic Violence, Survivor Guilt, Swearing, open the damn door Iosefka, teamwork won't save Gascoigne's daughter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-14
Updated: 2017-04-14
Packaged: 2018-10-18 22:03:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,706
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10626018
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Helicon/pseuds/Helicon
Summary: Iosefka's favorite lackey has a change of heart.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Have I ever mentioned that my #1 favorite trope is "selfish person gets dragged kicking and screaming into caring about people"?

“If you find any survivors, tell them to seek Iosefka’s clinic.”

 

Passing a grin and a wink the way of the closed door, Soren turned on his heel, pistol out, and strode into the lamp-lit street. A night like this left few living and fewer sane enough to seek a safer place than their own homes, but seeking was  _ his _ specialty. A hunter with his wits about him, a man of the Church -- though for the hateful cries of the afflicted townsfolk, the affiliation held no good place in many hearts these days -- he felt he was a trustworthy one, someone to help stand between those yet unaffected by plague and the beasthood.

 

In spite of his bad joints he cut through the more hostile, fell into step with the men solely seeking beasts, and the outsider amongst them who had no bias in mass-murder, who cut down anybody close enough.

 

He caught a glimpse of her face once -- round, a tawny beige in color, small and upturned nose and narrow eyes. That was while she took down a hulking scourge beast, a massive saw cleaver wielded in her little hands like an amateur, and he came in with the slash of his cane, taking its attention off her to get back her bearings. Her smile was crooked, her thanks heavily accented, and once it had fallen, they parted ways.

 

For the time being.

 

Soren met her again later, trying to convince someone unseen behind a window to go to the Chapel for safety. She cringed backwards, the person having apparently denied her offer, and returned to the window across the street with a shrug. “I will walk you there, miss, if you like,” he heard her say.

 

He sidled up to the man’s window and learned that while he rightfully does not trust the outsider, he knows no other place. Soren gave his fellow his own suggestion, cited Iosefka as a friend of his, and the suspicious man said he would consider it -- now bugger off. 

 

Time passed and Soren returned to the clinic, bony knuckles rapped on the window, and he waited for her to respond. 

 

“How is he?” he asked.

 

“The treatment is going wonderfully--”

 

He snorted. “Down with the whole charade, Sef, ain't nobody with me.” Her chuckle from behind the window was clear enough if he leaned in a little more. The doorknob jiggled, but didn't open. “Oh, you little  _ tease. _ ”

 

Iosefka grinned, her face distorted slightly by the tinted glass. “ _ Almost _ a success with this one. I'll need more. And you know,” she said, handing a small jar to him through the hole in the pane. “You have my thanks.”

 

“You mean I have your bribe?” Soren laughed and brushed the fingertips of his glove over her hand as she withdrew it. “I'll be back, then.”

 

“Please, do.”

 

And so continued Soren and Iosefka’s sinister partnership. He as a hunter, not of beasts or eldritch knowledge any longer but of people, enabled her experiments knowing well of her intent, though his desire was not in the strange and useful materials she traded off to him, but in the escape of the Hunt. As he escorted a snippy old woman to Iosefka’s door, he paused a moment when the Choir girl closed the door swiftly behind her. 

 

“Iosefka?” he called after her.

 

“Not now,” came her distant voice. “I have patients to attend to, Soren. Come back later?”

 

“...Yeah, sure.”

 

He strolled off deeper into the city, keeping a consistent vigil for beasts, taking out one or two before he found the hunter girl again. She was once again standing before a window, the warm light from inside casting odd shadows on her face, and talking at a downwards angle to whomever was inside. Something small glinted and reflected a little circle of red as she passed it through, hands shaking, suddenly silent. Soren crept closer. The girl’s gun -- blunderbuss -- whatever -- immediately pointed upwards to his face, a silent threat to blow it clean off until he sheathed his pistol and raised his hands.

 

“Careful with that.”

 

“You take this girl to the Oedon Chapel,” she said, jabbing her thumb at the window. The gun remained in his face. “I have to go somewhere else. It's too dangerous for her to go alone.”

 

He frowned. “Put that thing down ‘n maybe I'll consider it. Hell d’you think you are?”

 

“I think I am keeping people safe, that's what. You'll take her there?”

 

Behind the half-mask, he chewed on his lip for a moment before answering. “...Yeah, I'll do it.” 

 

Before the door creaked a tiny bit open, Soren was already considering two possibilities. Before a little girl, rubbing her red-rimmed eyes and clutching a brooch in her other hand, stepped out and ran to the Hunter’s leg to clutch it only to be directed towards him, he had put honest thought into bringing her to Iosefka instead.

 

She couldn't have been older than seven.

 

His heart dropped.

 

“C’mon,” he said, crouching down to her height and holding out his hand. Most of all, he was trying not to show that he'd been holding ill intentions for the girl less than a minute ago. “I'll getcha where you need to go.”

 

The two of them, Soren and the quiet, scared little girl, made their way to the Chapel via the sewer underworks of Yharnam, having deemed the streets too dangerous for someone so small. Their descent, their landing, both of them were smooth until an awful squeal struck them.

 

Soren was the first to react. He scooped the girl up in his arms, hefting her over his shoulder and running -- to her horror -- in the very same direction from which a massive hog was charging at them. She screamed, he screamed, it screamed -- he slammed into the wall as it rushed them, recovered fast enough to keep going, swearing under breath best used for sprinting: “Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck,  _ shit, _ fuck -- don't’chu tell yer mum an’ dad you've been hearin’ any of this -- oh,  _ bollocks!” _

 

He skidded to a halt, almost slipping in the sewer filth, the ground beneath him trembling. Soren let her gently to the ground, told her to run -- “It’s a straight shot right to the ladder,” he shouted, rushed for time. “Get movin’!” So it was right before the little girl started to run off that the boar changed its path, barreling right into the hunter and leaving him no time to draw his gun or think to transform his cane. When its giant snout came rapidly into contact with his chest, throwing him back into the wall, Soren caught a brief glimpse of the girl stopping and let out a breathless series of no’s as he fumbled for a vial and tried to blink away the stars in his vision. “Fuck--” Speaking aggravated the pain in his ribs and back but the kid just would not move, and he was losing the monster’s attention fast. “--ing-- _ MOVE--IT!” _

 

Trauma? Likely. He jabbed the needle into his thigh and felt himself become steady enough to stand, fire a shot into the boar’s hind and whip out his cane like a sword, stumble-running after the thing as it chased down a terrified, unresponsive target. His own bestial yell was drowned out in the girl’s screams as she finally came back to reality and took off as quickly as her little legs would allow.

 

Which, incidentally, was not fast enough.

 

At first, Soren thought she'd been trampled, but when the boar outmatched him and he was forced to flee up the ladder on his own, looking back, he saw no body. Its maw opened and shut, facing upwards, a couple times until he realized what had happened and dragged himself further up the ladder, out of the sewer, dropped to all fours and then fell flat on his face. 

 

Soren Lange was a relentless huntsman of sixty-seven. A former tomb prospector, and so recently was the former, he'd seen and even committed horrors like and worse than this. Men and women slaughtered by inhuman creatures and Pthumerian design. By him, himself, in the pursuit of ancient knowledge in the name of the Healing Church. Men like him did not cry over the casualties of a hunt, over little girls.

 

No, men like him stiffened their lip and broke, ultimately, outside the door of a good friend.

 

“I'm very sorry, Soren, but I can't open this door.”

 

“For me? After all I've done for you?” He sniffled and wiped his face on his sleeve. “I've had  _ enough _ of this hunt, Sef, it’s gone on forever and I--I can't  _ deal _ with it anymore, I need to rest, or--or something, need t’forget about that kid, I just…” One hand balled into a fist and resting on the window, no power behind it, he heaved a shaking sigh. “Please. An hour, most. I won't touch anythin’.”

 

Iosefka’s fingers slipped through the break in the pane, and Soren held them in his like he would break them if he squeezed too hard. He almost wanted to. 

 

“Please.”

 

Her hand drew away from his, and after a silent pause, she spoke again. “Tell me what happened.”

 

“Her dad, I… I was s’posed to get her back home to 'im…”

 

“It didn't work out very well?”

 

Hoarse, he laughed, but there was no humor. Just bitterness. “He was dead,” he decided on the fly. “I was on the way back here when one ‘a the sewer pigs got to us. I didn't wanna see her  _ dead,  _ Sef…”

 

“You did what you coul--”

 

“No!” he interjected, suddenly furious. “No, I didn’t! I could’ve thought faster but I didn’t, I could’ve just kept us runnin’ but I didn’t, I could’ve--” He was cut off abruptly, she’d reached through again, grabbed his arm, and gave it a gentle squeeze. “Sef, don’t think I don’t know what you’re tryin’ to do here. I fucked up, lemme own up to it!”

 

The quiet between then returned again, broken by the gurgling moans of Iosefka’s patients inside, and Soren’s erratic breathing outside.

 

“I’m sorry,” he said, almost a whisper. “I’m so sorry.”

 

“I forgive you.”

  
“Ain’t you I’m apologizin' to.”


End file.
